Samsung pips Apple as leader in India’s premium smartphone segment

New Delhi: Korean handset maker Samsung has toppled Apple as the leader in India's premium smartphone segment. Both smartphone giants Samsung and Apple were neck to neck in the market in the October-December quarter but in the January-March quarter, Samsung emerged as the leader.

According to the reports by GfK and Counterpoint Research, Samsung moved ahead in the high-value Rs 30,000-plus smartphone segment.

Counterpoint Research, the Hong Kong-based shipment tracker, has come out with figures saying that Samsung’s shares rose to 62 per cent from 35 per cent while Apple's share, in contrast, fell to 37 per cent from 55 per cent in the January-March quarter.

On the other hand GfK, which tracks end-consumer sales placed Samsung’s market shares at 50 per cent and Apple’s at 41 per cent for the January-March quarter.

Top market analysts said the market shares favoured Samsung due to the success of Samsung's latest blockbuster model Galaxy S7, which was launched last month. Also, there were price drops on older popular models including the Galaxy S6 and Note 5.

Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst Tarun Pathak told ET, "The impact of Galaxy S7 sales was for half month in March and the full impact will be in the current quarter whereby we expect Samsung may further expand its lead in the premium segment considering iPhone SE has been lukewarm demand till now."

Recently, Apple revealed its second quarter results showing a 56 per cent increase in iPhone sales revenue in India. Also, Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said the Indian market was at the same stage of development as China's about 7-10 years ago.

Samsung topped Apple despite the numbers given by the Cupertino giant. According to some of the Industry executives, this is happening due to the huge online discounting on iPhones.